Ended Eden
by Mister Vix
Summary: AU. The Reploid Revolution is in the past, and the Reploid Utopia is in the past...all signs show that, for X and Zero, Eden has Ended.


Ended Eden  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are. Simple as that.  
  
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Author's Notes: I can't seem to stop coming up with ideas. Ones which I have no idea whether they've been used before or not. Either way, I'm just gonna go with it. This is intended to be a one-shot thingie...might make more on it later though. All depends on the response I get.  
  
This is AU, so of course history is different. Don't automatically assume "THEY'VE ALL GONE MAVERICK!"  
  
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Eden was ended. They all knew that the moment the huge cloud had raised up from the shuddering surface of the half-ruined Earth, great vents of lava spewing toxic gases into their home's atmosphere. Every day another fault appeared, tearing apart everything around it in massive earthquakes. Such a pity. Everything they had faught for...and now it was all going up in fire and smoke.  
  
"Have you secured the Triplo Base?" he asked into his com. Another gust of thermic wind rose up from the ground and stung his eyes, carrying ashes up into the air with it. As if there weren't already enough there, drifting like black snow on the winds.  
  
"Yes, sir," replied a voice, crackling in over the com. The transmission was laden with static. Just three days ago, the line between Earthchain Base and Triplo Base had been crystal clear, but the magnetic fields were going insane. Had been for some time now. It was a nasty business, and had already killed off Northern Base entirely. "What is the situation at Earthchain Base?"  
  
"No good, sir," he replied. All Base Reporters called each other "sir" or "ma'am." Just about everyone in general called each other "sir" or "ma'am" nowadays, regardless of station. It simplified things, and that was good. They had too much to worry about to deal with complicated titles. "A new fault has appeared, and we're trying to stabilize it now. I need to get back to work, sir. Earthchain Base Reporter X, out." He clicked off the comline, grabbed his helmet, and pulled it down over his shaggy black hair. He shook his head once, making sure the azure metal headgear was firmly in place, and then left the com room, with its cracked floor and open ceiling. It used to be a proper room, with precise walls and a perfectly even floor, but then the new fault had appeared and knocked most of it down. It was a miracle the com equipment had survived, and as it was, the teleporter had been demolished in falling rubble. They were stuck at Earthchain Base until the next Aircarrier came in, and that wouldn't be for another week.  
  
"Hey X," greeted Merphi. The tall, broad-shouldered reploid--humanoid design--wiped a hand across his face, and sighed. "Any good news?" X smiled vaguely and nodded.  
  
"Triplo's still in contact, and they're stable for the moment," he said. He couldn't help the weariness in his voice, having gone for three days without so much as a pause so far. They couldn't afford to stop at the moment. Every one of them was running on little or no rest. It wouldn't be long before exhaustion started breaking them up...  
  
"Well, that's something fortunate, at least," Merphi replied, immidiately turning back to his work. He was trying to fix a great machine, a jumble of pistons and tubes and gears. The whole point of it was to straighten out the ground--it had been holding an old fault under submission when the new one had torn it almost in half. Everything seemed to be breaking all the time, and had to be repaired...but there was no way to repair the Earth.  
  
X waved indifferently to the few people who acknowledged his return from the com room, more intent on the ground, making sure not to trip over anything. He was so tired anymore, he had the feeling that if he were to fall down, he wouldn't be able to get himself back on his feet...and falling was more and more easy, with all the uneven breaks in the ground, and the fact that his eyes kept trying to drift shut. There was another hot, upwards rush of air, dragging up ashes to sting his eyes, and he paused, scrubbing at his face, trying to wake himself up more than free his aching eyes of the irritant. Someone else stepped up to him, arms folded behind them, just watching him. No one saw the figure watching X--they were all too busy to notice the visitor. His slight smile was a bit crooked, from the jagged scar that dragged heavily down the right side of his face. His right eye was a burnished copper, while his left was ocean blue. Another thermal gust picked up his mane of golden hair and whipped it about his shoulders.  
  
"You haven't been taking very good care of yourself, X," he said, his voice coarse and dry--it sounded old. Much older than it had before all this mess. The Blue's gaze snapped up, locking with the visitor's two-tone eyes.  
  
"Zero..." he whispered. "I thought you weren't coming back..." The blonde reploid, dressed in an ash-gray, sleeveless coat that hung down to his knees, faded jeans, and a slightly tattered white turtleneck, just widened his lopsided smile, and clapped X on the shoulder.  
  
"Now why wouldn't I come back?" he asked, seeming genuinely cheerful. X knew it was an act. Zero hadn't found anything to be happy about for the past ten years, and he wasn't about to start now. That was why he had started wandering aimlessly, abandoning everything just to travel from place to place...hunting for hope, X thought. A hope he hadn't found anywhere...   
  
"Seriously though, you're a wreck," the Red informed his friend, who was already well aware of the fact. Zero's crooked smile had vanished, and when he wasn't making any attempt at feigning happiness, he looked downright sinister. There was a hard, bitter edge to his two-tone eyes, one that had been ground and whetted from ten years of wandering. Sharp as a blade, it was now, and ready to draw blood from anyone who might cross him. 'Even me,' X thought morbidly. He had once been the closest--practically the only--friend that the blonde reploid had had, but ever since...'Forget about it.' Living in the past wouldn't help him accomplish anything. What had happened had happened, and now Zero had no friends, as hard as X tried to act like nothing had changed...last time they had met, it had ended in a heated dispute, the grand finale being when Zero stalked away with the harsh statement that he never wanted to see his old friend again...but here he was, returned again.  
  
"I can't help it," X said finally, after a long pause. Silence was all that came easily between the two anymore, and it almost made X want to cry. Their friendship had been torn apart, as surely as had their home. Zero sighed and said nothing. What was there to say? The two just watched each other for a long moment, then X, hesitantly, spoke.  
  
"Well, hey...uh...I've gotta get back to work..." he said, turning away. Zero, after a hesitation of his own, nodded.  
  
"Yeah, guess so...I'll be seeing you, I suppose...maybe..." the Red was a wanderer now. He was The Wanderer, in fact, known for the way he walked aimlessly everywhere, on an unending, unspoken quest.   
  
Just another sign that Eden was ended.  
  
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He hadn't been able to do it. All that time he'd spent psyching himself up, building his normally dauntless courage, and...he'd chickened out right in front of X, had turned his eyes away, had let the Blue go without saying a word. He was disgusted with himself.  
  
"Well, you'll just have to try again, won't you?" he spat. Talking to oneself was usually one of the first habits a person picked up when they spent years on their own, with no one else to talk to. He had long since stopped noticing when he talked to himself, which got him strange looks whenever he was actually around other living people. "You botched this time up bad, but you can always try again. X isn't mad at you, not anymore..." He hoped it was true. He had gotten pretty good at spotting things, and he hadn't seen any anger in X's eyes--only a strange, sad hope. That lended him some of his confidence back.  
  
It had been a whole two years ago that Zero had walked away angry, stupidly promising himself that he'd never go near X ever again if he could help it. But old habits died hard, and he'd found himself wandering back to Earthchain Base anyway. He'd avoided the place for as long as he could, and when he couldn't stand it anymore, finally admitted to himself that it was time to forgive and forget...and ask to be forgiven. He hated that, but he knew that it was the only thing that might possibly rekindle some of the kinship he and X had so long shared. He had been alone for a long time, and had decided, finally, that he didn't really like it.   
  
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!"  
  
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The ground lurched and groaned. The new fault was acting up, and acting up big-time. X was staring hopelessly at a small--but steadily growing--pool of lava, sullenly belching fumes into the air. The toxins wouldn't effect reploids, of course, but it wasn't helping the atmosphere of the poor planet any to have even more weighing it down. And the sight of a pool at all was VERY bad news--that meant that the fault was splitting wider.  
  
"This is...just...GREAT," X sighed. He was surprised when someone casually laid a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Seriously," Zero added quietly. The Blue jumped slightly in surprise.  
  
"Hey, Zero..." he mumbled then.   
  
"Look, X, I came back...to say I'm sorry," the blonde reploid said straightforwardly. X looked up at his old friend, and smiled.  
  
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"We only need seven more days," she said, her voice strained, "Just one week!" She was tense with a mixture of fear and excitement. Only seven days, and the final Star Carrier would be complete--the last one that could be made in time.  
  
"Alright," replied the second reploid. He nodded sharply. "I'll send out word to all Bases. Total evacuation of all Bases in seven days. But...we won't have enough Star Carriers." The female reploid nodded sadly.  
  
"Carrier Builders and Base Workers are to be given first priority," she replied. He sighed and nodded again.  
  
"Yes, of course."  
  
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X had gotten the announcement the second it came out. Being a Base Reporter, he was in charge of managing the com room, and had been channel skimming when the announcement was broadcast. He grinned at Zero, who had been hanging around all day.  
  
"Seven days!" he said excitedly, and at that moment a tremor rocked through the ground, splitting it open and spewing a huge cloud of thick, oily smoke into the air not three feet away from them. X was shaken clean off his feet, thrown to the ground as it lurched and split, and Zero saved himself from the same fate only by clinging tightly to one of the chunks of wall still standing.  
  
"And not a moment too soon," the blonde commented once the Earth's spasm had quieted. X gave no response. Zero frowned and walked over to where the smaller reploid lay unmoving, prodded him tentatively, and smirked when the black-haired reploid mumbled something. Apparently, all it had taken was for him to be knocked off his feet to knock him out completely. Zero decided to just let him sleep.  
  
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...The charge had commenced.  
  
The ground beneath their feet seemed to be smoking, so much dust was thrown into the air. This was the Final Assault, the ending blow. There might be forces left on both sides after this attack, but everyone knew. This would finish it. Would end the war.  
  
Up at the front of the army, Commander raised his beamsaber. It was a neon green banner, the only banner they bore. It was a banner for freedom, for defiance, a banner that proudly proclaimed that they deserved better than they had gotten. Zero's saber. The reploid banner.  
  
On the other side of the field, the tattered rag that served as the human's standard flapped and fluttered like a moth in the wind, a red strip that seemed pitiful in comparison to the flaring green streak that was Zero's beamsaber. It was the humans versus the reploids, but the humans were losing.  
  
"FOR SIGMA!" was the scream that filled the air. Every self-respecting reploid left alive, after the human's attempted genocide of their race, howled that name, the name of their fallen leader, their martyr. Sigma, the Great, who had stood for reploid freedom, who had demanded that the thinking machines get the rights and privileges they deserved. "FOR SIGMA!"  
  
The humans cowered behind their tanks and choppers, hid their weak bodies in sheaths of metal plating in a feeble imitation of the immense power that every individual reploid possessed.   
  
Zero was at the head of the charge, his saber a streaking ark that ate through everything in its path, leaving bright crimson lines and hissing, spitting severed wires. With a kick of his boots his dash thrust activated, and he propelled himself straight through a tank, saber carving through the lurching behemoth like it was nothing but water, leaving it in a fiery explosion that propelled the blonde warrior forward, sending him crashing into the next wave of human fighters. He rolled among them, cutting their legs out from under them, and came to his feet smoothely, whirling around, his saber leaving a corkscrew trail of neon death.  
  
He saw it all from where he was, farther out from the battle. He was a sharpshooter, not intended for melee combat, instead picking out and eliminating key figures--he ignored the way his stomache twisted whenever crimson flowers bloomed in the wake of his burning plasma fire. They were the betrayers, the wicked ones--the humans who had smiled and shook hands with Sigma, treating him like an equal, an honorable emissary...and then, right on national television, struck him down from behind, took advantage of the fact that he had come to them unarmed, and killed him. All in the statement that such was the fate of any reploid who dared think themself equal to the beings who had so erronously created them. That had begun the war. And still X couldn't help but flinch when one the human soldiers screamed horribly, thrashing in their death throes, from his accurate shots.  
  
The cries of the dead and dying weighed the air down, but it didn't distract X from seeing when Zero was suddenly isolated, cut off from the rest of the force. He was encircled, his darting saber not quite fast enough to carve him a path out of the noose that was tightening swiftly. X immidiately shifted his targetting, taking out as many of the soldiers surrounding the Commander as he could. But it wouldn't be enough, he knew, when a warmachine--a great, messy thing of gears and pistons, half its armor already torn off, smoke pouring from a gaping hole in its side--bore down on him, its huge, scorpionlike claws flashing in the dim sunlight. He thrust his saber straight up into its head, seperating it from the metallic monster's body, but then he was caught, and then X could see no more of him--the machine had burst into flames, its fuel catching fire, and filled the air with oily clouds, obscuring everything.  
  
"Zero!" he shouted, rushing towards the area. He was charging his buster, but he wasn't sure how much it would help him--it wasn't meant for that type of fighting. His fury carried him more than his weapon did, forcing him on even when a sharp blow cracked his sapphire helmet smoothly down the middle, and he couldn't see for his own blood in his eyes. Howling in a voice he barely recognized as his own, he tore his way through, switching rapidly between one weapon-type and the next--fire, ice, wind, metal--using whichever of his wide arsenal seemed most fitting. He had no idea how long it took him to reach the cloud of oily smoke that enshrouded the place he had last seen Zero--fighting was that way, usually, just a rush of endless motion, in which time could not be properly measured. He did know that when he did find his close friend, all thoughts of the battle fled from his mind.  
  
Zero had killed the warmachine--that had been inevitable, of course. But its lifeless metal body had fallen atop him, pinning him under a burning hulk of wreckage, and its claws had left their mark--X couldn't see the right side of Zero's face because of all the spilled blood, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. What was more important was that Zero was still alive--was, in fact, still conscious, watching X intently with his one open eye. The blonde wisely did not attempt to speak--it was unlikely he would've been able to make any sense anyway, due to the damage to his jaw. X blasted away the smouldering metal that had the Commander pinned, and helped Zero to his feet--the crimson-armored warrior seemed unconcerned that he was completely blind in his right eye, that he could not get any response from that half of his face at all, and picked up his saber once more, raising it into the air. To the humans that were close enough to see Zero's maimed face, he was a ghastly sight--reploid blood spreading in a deep red stream down his neck and chest, his blonde hair whipping wildly in the wind, his single eye glaring with a half-mad determination. Such a figure could only be Death, cloaked in ruby.  
  
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X's eyes snapped open, and he stared upwards curiously for a few moments at the ash-filled sky. The ashes were like flecks of black-stained snow, drifting silently and mindlessly, following wherever the wind led them without question. The sky above was a pale gray, dead and stretched taut.  
  
"Welcome back," Zero said, his rugged voice light. X blinked and pulled himself to his feet.  
  
"Guess I just sorta dropped out there..." he mumbled, and Zero snickered.   
  
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For a person who's been around for over a hundred years, a single week usually passes pretty quickly. However, to X and Zero, the time drug on interminably as they worked to keep the Base machines running for as long as possible. X had been surprised when Zero offered to help--the Red had never been much for physical labor, much preferring to run around and do whatever he felt like--but he accepted without a complaint. Things were still falling apart, but with the knowledge that they wouldn't be stuck in this blasted place much longer, things seemed more bearable.   
  
That was...until the seventh day, when a group of reploids appeared on the outskirts of Earthchain Base.  
  
"So you're here to take us up to the Star Carriers," X confirmed, and the leader of the new arrivals, a bear-type reploid with black fur speckled with gray, nodded. "Alright! At last!" The Blue's excitement died, however, as the bear began speaking, his voice a low drone.  
  
"Unfortunately, there is insufficient time to make an adequat amount of Star Carriers," he informed X, "And so only a selected number will be permitted to board. This is regrettable but unavoidable." X's eyes were wide with horror.  
  
"You mean...you're leaving people behind? But you can't!" his voice was soft but urgent. "That's...that's murder!" The bear just looked at him with a long-suffering, tired expression.  
  
"I am sorry, sir, but there is no way to resolve this problem," he said. "There is simply not enough space nor resources to carry everyone." Then the bear lifted up a slim laptop, flipped it open, and began reading names off of the lit screen...the names of those lucky ones who were permitted to board. X's name was at the very top of the list--first priority. However, when the bear ceased speaking, X tensed.  
  
"Zero wasn't on that list," he said. "Why wasn't Zero on the list?" The bear gave him another one of those infuriating, condescending, weary looks.  
  
"Zero never offered any support for the Bases," he said plainly. X wasn't a screamer--he didn't like raising his voice to people--but he was shouting now, and everyone in the Base heard.  
  
"YOU CAN'T LEAVE HIM BEHIND!!" all X's shouting got was a blank stare. "He was the Commander! Doesn't that mean anything to you?!" The bear's expression remained unchanged. As the echoes of X's shout faded, his expression changed to one of resignition. "Take Zero instead of me." The bear growled lowly.  
  
"Zero is not--" he was interrupted by X.  
  
"You said the reason you're not taking everyone is space and resources. If you take Zero instead of me, there won't be any more space or resources taken up than if I'd gone." The bear sighed heavily, as though he were dealing with someone rather stupid.  
  
"I am not given the choice to switch people's reservations for the Star Carriers," he stated. X was about to comment on that when, unexpectedly for everyone in the Base, the bear struck him upside the head, knocking him across the ground. With a quick gesture from the bear, another of the reploids lifted the dazed X up, and then they vanished, caught up in the field of teleportation. Everyone stared at the spot they had been for a long moment...except for Zero. The Red gave a wordless cry of rage, and dashed off headlong. He would never make it in time...  
  
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He became slowly aware of his surroundings, but everything was still fuzzy and indistinct. He could hear people whispering--they sounded frightening. He raised his aching head slowly, wincing at the quick flash of pain that raced through him.  
  
"...what?" he asked, his voice a whisper. The place he was in was a cramped little bunkroom, the lights down low, and every cot jammed full--some with two or even three reploids. Someone looked over at him, and their expression was unreadable in the darkness.  
  
"They say one of the reploids running the Star Carrier program snapped. We've all been herded aboard this place like cattle, and we aren't allowed to leave. Half the people who're supposed to be on board aren't, and everyone who is on board has been cramped into a few select rooms..." their whisper seemed to cut through the murmur-filled darkness, and the tense fear in the air was so thick X could practically taste it. He leaned against the back wall, and his hand brushed against some kind of a raised panel. Pushing on it gently, it slid back, revealing a thick, round window, and outside of it he could see the landscape stretching away in an endless, dead plain...and there was something on that landscape, throwing up dust in its wake, someone in an ash-gray cloak with flying blonde hair...  
  
"Zero!" he gasped, pressing against the window. The engines of the Star Carrier thrummed to life. Zero shouted something--X saw his mouth move--but the sound was drowned out. And then he couldn't see Zero, couldn't see any of the outside landscape, from the violent ocean of dust thrown into the air as the Star Carrier lifted itself off the ground. X struck his fist against the window to no avail, and, shattering the thrumming silence of the room, screamed,   
  
"ZEROOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  
  
But Zero had been left behind. 


End file.
